Into the Starry Sky
by Ninja-band-aid
Summary: Iruka is the captain of a merchant sky ship, just trying to do his job and enjoy life in the thick of the stars. But he's unwittingly hired a mutinous pirate crew, led by Kakashi. How can either of them get out of this alive and with their hearts intact?


A/N: Ahhh! Another contest for the brilliant NSou. And you know what thaaat means… it's the day before it's due and I'm just getting started. *sheepish grin* Whateves. I did it, didn't I? Damn right I did.

So this might not be what everyone got out of seeing that picture, but I'd just seen Treasure Planet at the time, and thus, this. I haven't read what anyone else entered yet, because I didn't want to psych myself out, and hopefully this idea is actually original?

So here's my story, let's hope its good (1st place good?).  
>Might be a little choppy, because I'm so cocksure and so pressed for time that I'm uploading it first draft. I'll fix it later if I think I should. heh.<br>Thanks for reading, hope you like it.

† † †

In retrospect, he really should have known right after dinner. That soup had been criminal, for want of a less ironic word. Seriously, it was so bad that Iruka had been about this close to spitting it all back out onto the wooden floor. As it was, he managed to gag it down, and promptly pushed away the rest of the food.

That was when he ought to have figured out that his cook was not who he said he was. He was no Italian-trained chef. He wasn't a chef. He didn't even qualify for the term 'cook', seeing as he couldn't. He really, really couldn't.

So everything he'd told Iruka when he'd been hired was a lie. Just like everything that every single member of the new crew he'd hired had been a lie. He didn't have an honest man in the bunch, and that was exactly how they'd planned it. Because they were all a crew together before Iruka ever hired them. A crew with a captain. And that captain, needless to say, was not Iruka.

He was a merchant captain, in charge of a decent-sized trading vessel. And Captain Iruka loved his job. He loved the way the plasma smelled. He loved the gentle floating as the ship was untethered, and the powerful, stomach-lurching kick of the thrusters bursting to life. He loved the strange, beautiful creatures that dipped and dove through the constellations; tiny darting comet fish and massive, slow star-whales. He loved how it was always twilight, too black for day, too bright for night. He loved how the sky around him drifted from oranges to purples to greens and back.

But most of all he loved the stars. Always, always, he was surrounded by stars. You really couldn't see them form the planets and sky-ports, no matter how remote or unsettles. You had to look up to observe them from land. On a sky ship, you were [i]there[/i], right among the beauty and action. You didn't have to look around, you were inside them.

Getting paid to do this seemed like a lucky break to Iruka. He would have done it for free, no question. The whole 'job' part of it, the ledgers and deals and commissions and drop-offs and pick-ups… well, those were just minor things that had to be done to get himself back into the sky. Worth it. And Iruka was always rather gifted at mathematics anyway. Completely worth it.

But if there was one thing that Iruka liked as much as the sky, it was a well-oiled machine. He was meticulous with his ships, and he wouldn't let a splinter be out of place on a single one of them. Crews tended to fail to understand that. In fact, they often seemed to resent their captain's desire to run things tighter than a military ship. Iruka respected their need for freedom – he understood it well – but freedom came with responsibility, or so he believed. Nobody else seemed to agree.

He had a high turnover rate for his crews, to be kind about it.

To be unkind, the whole crew usually jumped ship the first chance they got.

So it was not at all surprising that Iruka found himself, yet again, interviewing a new crew for his latest trip.

It wasn't going to be a long trip, just a couple of weeks in the æther. Delivering bolts of silk for some company or another. Iruka didn't care as much as he probably ought to have cared. And, having not been in the skies for over a month by then, he was eager to get going again. So he'd been just a bit sloppy with his crew selection process.

Plenty of them showed up, and they all seemed just dandy – what was there to question? Not like he was going to be up for years with them or anything. It didn't matter if they embellished their skills a bit, or if Iruka wasn't exactly background checking them. It seemed fine, and he was rearing to go.

Even the fact that one of them had his face hidden with a bandanna and one eye patched didn't look like an enormous cause for concern. He introduced himself as "Cookie" and he turned out to be the man Iruka hired as the cook.

And that was where he originally placed the blame for the Cookie's horrific cooking. It was a simple spark squid soup, with some kind of citrus. Nothing complicated, a staple for any sky ship's cook. And yet Cookie had botched it, totally and utterly.

Iruka chalked it up to somebody desperate to get out of port lying about his skills. And he at least partially blamed himself; he should have been more careful in choosing his cook. But he brushed it off. A few weeks of hardtack and rum wasn't going to kill him.

But a week later and Iruka noticed that the terrible cooking wasn't the only thing wrong.

It was normal for a new crew to act oddly around one another. Everyone had to get situated, figure out the pecking order, get a feel for the captain… but that didn't seem to be what this crew was doing. In fact, they were oddly chummy with one another, as if they were all old chums. And in reverse of this, they all totally mistrusted Iruka himself. Everywhere he went he got weird looks. Often the atmosphere onboard felt like a pressure cooker, just waiting to explode.

But they were only another week and a half from being done, so Iruka decided he'd put up with it.

This was a mistake.

It was late one evening when it happened. Captain Iruka was in his quarters, checking the charts and updating his ship's log. Iruka was meticulous about his log, and had been keeping it for so long that it was more of a diary by this point. They were far out to sky, in the middle of nowhere, calmly drifting along their course, the boosters on low to save energy. It was quiet, placid, calm.

And then someone knocked at the door. Iruka frowned, displeased to be interrupted mid-thought. His quill stilled on the page, and he pushed back his chair, crossing the small cabin to the door.

"I believe I gave very express orders that I was not to be disturbed after a certain point in the evening," he called through the wood as he crossed the room, "Expect in the event of an emergency." He opened the door, "So what in the System is the emergenc-" He didn't get the chance to finish his sentence.

A hand clapped over Iruka's mouth, and another two sets of hands grabbed him by each arm, yanking him forward. He stumbled out of his room onto the main deck. His eyes went wide as a new hand grabbed him by his ponytail and yanked back his head. Iruka found himself face-to-face with the one eyed alleged cook.

The man still had one eye patched. But what he no longer had was his bandana. Iruka had assumed, when he'd seen it, that Cookie was the victim of some horrible accident. It was not an illogical assumption – bad things happened to careless people on board a star ship. But the moment Iruka saw the true face of this 'Cookie', he knew who he really was.

Kakashi. A pirate. A terribly, terrifyingly well-known pirate. The face that now locked eyes (eye) with Iruka was the same one that smiled out from every wanted poster on every space port and island in the galaxy. Iruka felt his blood run cold as he cursed himself for his stupidity.

"Emergency?" Kakashi said coolly, "Well, no, not much of an emergency. Though…" he leaned back, tugging Iruka's hair and making the man wince, and he glanced around himself, "We seem to have been overrun by pirates." He looked back and grinned. "Ain't that sad?"

The hand came off of Iruka's mouth and he moved to scream, but the hand was replaced with a bandana before he could – presumably the one that Kakashi had worn until now. He settled for furious glaring.

Kakashi smiled all the wider and let go of Iruka's hair.

"Tie him below deck."

† † †

Iruka found himself bound to the below deck section of the mast, his arms pulled back and tied roughly with hemp. It was an unkind way to hold a man, unable to even sit. But hold him they did, and not for only a moment, either.

They tied him… and then, apparently, forgot all about him. Trapped in a space without windows, Iruka could only guess what was going on by sound and vibration.

And it sounded like there was not a good man in his entire crew. Iruka had to curse himself. He couldn't believe that he'd been duped by the entire pirate crew. He'd been doing this for thirteen years – how could he have been so [i]stupid[/i]?

He felt the ship move, speeding up in its path. They were not altering course. They were hurrying toward the destination. Iruka could only wonder and fear why.

† † †

At their breakneck pace, they arrived in the space of a few days. Nobody had come down for Iruka once in that time. The candles and oil lamps had burned down and fizzled out, trapping the bound captain in the darkness. And he was hungry. So hungry.

He'd even eat his ersatz cook's squid soup at this point.

With only the sound of his stomach to distract from what was happening outside and above, Iruka got an earful of what happened next.

They made port.

And they attacked.

Iruka was helpless as he heard the plasma guns fire on both sides, heard the shouting and whooping of the pirates and the screaming of their victims. Heard his beloved ship, his entire life, being battered and hit.

By the raucous stamping and cheering he heard a few hours later (and the fact that the ships hadn't been blown up and drifted into the sky), the pirates had been successful. His beloved sky ship was now a pirate's vessel.

Captain Iruka hung his head and cried for it.

† † †

The next night, he was remembered.

By none other than Kakashi.

The man descended the creaking stairs the afternoon after their victory over the helpless sky-side village. He had a definite swagger to his step, evident in the light of the single flickering candle that left Iruka blinking.

"And how are we doing, captain?" he asked with cocky sarcasm. "Sitting tight?" He set the candle on a nearby barrel and turned to face Iruka. "Though, I suppose you can't sit, can you?" He chuckled.

Iruka glared. His arms ached. "Eer a og," he said bitterly through the handkerchief in his mouth, "Uffian!"

It rolled off of Kakashi like water off the back of a duck. He even smiled beneath his bandana – which had been replaced. "What was that, sir? Didn't quite catch that."

Iruka's eyes narrowed. But Kakashi at least had the grace to pull out a dagger and cut away the gag. Iruka took a painful breath into his dry mouth. He still could barely talk.

"You're a dog!" he coughed, "Ruffian."

Kakashi raised his brows and pulled his saber from his belt. He angled it up, prodding the soft place beneath Iruka's jaw. Iruka grit his teeth and tilted his head to avoid it.

"Captain, sir, you're not in any place to talk." They held that place for a moment, the only sound the creaking of the skip in the sky and Iruka's harsh breaths.

Finally Kakashi withdrew and re-holstered his weapon.

"Now, I think you'll find this terribly interesting," the pirate went on, as if this were a totally normal discussion, "We [i]were[/i] going to be ransoming you… operative word being '[i]were[/i]'. See, we've hit a little roadblock."

Iruka spoke harsh and hoarse through his hurting mouth, "Oh [i]do[/i] go on."

"Right, well, I've been doing a bit of bed time reading –" he pulled a slim black volume from his pocket and waved it in the air, "And it seems that you've got nobody to pay said ransom.

Iruka's eyes went wide. "That's my-!"

"Diary, yes, I got that bit," Kakashi talked over him, "And you don't seem to have much of a family do you?"

Iruka glared daggers, the redness rising in his cheeks.

"So, the crew wants me to kill you."

Iruka pressed himself instinctively back into the mast pole.

Kakashi was quiet then, looking over the man. "But… I don't feel like it at the moment."

And then he turned and left.

† † †

The next day, Kakashi returned. This time he brought food and water. He wouldn't give Iruka his hands back – he was given the option of eating from Kakashi's hands or with his face. Iruka chose his face. It seemed the slightly more prideful option, though not by much.

And then Kakashi left again, without another word of explanation.

† † †

This pattern repeated itself for another two weeks. Iruka was clueless, but the conversation Kakashi kept making with him was actually starting to wear him down. Kakashi kept asking him questions, so many questions.

Why did do this job?

How did he get into it?

What made him keep doing it for all these years?

He was so young – how was he a captain?

Kakashi never seemed to shut up. And the questions kept getting more and more personal. The pirate even went so far as to ask his favorite color! It was ridiculous.

But what Iruka didn't know is that Kakashi's questions were born of further bedtime reading. Lots and lots of it, actually. Iruka kept every volume of his log he'd written with him wherever he went, in a chest in his cabin. And Kakashi had found this chest, and he'd been making an effort to read every word Iruka had written.

He read of how Iruka had been born on a small sky island, in a fishing village. He was his parents' first child, and he would be their only. His father left the family when Iruka was only three. Iruka had grown up without a direction in his life, but he never let himself be discouraged. He loved the sky, and he knew that he needed to be in it, out there. Not just sitting looking out and up at it.

So, with a promise to his mother that he would come back (unlike his father), Iruka signed on with a merchant ship at the tender age of fifteen.

But he never got to make good on his promise. His mother passed away of a terrible illness that struck the island while Iruka was gone.

He only escaped it by a matter of weeks.

And then Iruka was alone. He had no home now, and no other family. And he was still so young. He threw himself into his new life, this work. Hard work and deep skies kept his mind off of what he had lost and what he'd never had.

And hard work got him through the ranks with an impressive swiftness, until he could buy his own ship and go into his own business.

Iruka wrote all of this, and of his passion for the sky and the stars. Everything. Right up to his last entry, the day of the mutiny.

And Kakashi read every single word. And he found himself falling in love with this scared, lonely boy, with this angry, passionate teenager, with this strong, cool man.

It was the reason Kakashi kept the crew from killing their former captain. Though none of them could know that. Kakashi didn't have a plan, he didn't know what to do. But he knew he wouldn't let Iruka's life end this way as long as he could help it.

† † †

Iruka was sitting with his back to the mast. Still trapped in that room, but after three weeks, he was no longer bound. And it was lit full-time once more, with oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. Kakashi had seen to both of those things. And he actually had a hammock down here now. And food on a regular basis. It was horrible, but it was food (at least he was pretty sure it was food; he didn't think Kakashi would poison him… on purpose).

The door opened, and Kakashi entered. He locked the door behind himself, ever careful, and sat down on the floor, back to the side of the ship, facing Iruka. They regarded one another for a quiet moment.

And then Kakashi pulled out a book and started to read.

"…my last memory of him was when I was three," he said in a neutral voice, "I was outside on the beach by the house. I was playing in the sand and stardust, tossing it into the air and letting it fall on my head, dusting my hair like it was its own sky filled with stars."

"Stop it," Iruka whispered, looking at the floor.

Kakashi ignored him. "He came down from the house and stood at the edge of the beach, hands in his pockets, watching me. I don't know what sort of look he had on his face. I don't remember his face. I was so small then, it seemed that all his was were legs, so much bigger than me. I see now how short I am, and realize that he couldn't have been a very large man. But it seemed as if he was all there was."

"Stop," Iruka said again.

And again Kakashi kept on reading, "And he just watched me play. And then he went for a walk. I came back to the house. He didn't." Kakashi paused for a moment to glance up at Iruka. He was biting the inside of his cheek. Kakashi looked back down and flipped through a few more pages.

"My first day was the most brutal of my life. I did everything wrong. Everyone screamed at me. I stepped on so many toes and bumped into so many people and screwed up so many knots. By the end of that day, my I was aching down to my bones, my hands were scraped raw and bleeding, my feet ached, my face was burned, and everyone hated me. That first month was miserable."

"Stop."

"Nobody helped me, and everything was terrible. It stayed that way until I finally realized that nobody was going to help me. Nobody was going to show me what to do, nobody was going to do it for me, nobody was going to help me get it done. So I had to pick myself up and do it myself. And then it got better. As soon as I stopped trying to make them like me, I was free. I could finally see the beauty I'd wanted. I didn't need anyone else to care, as long as there were stars."

"Stop."

Kakashi went forward more pages. "I love the way the sky moves when the thrusters kick in. That whoosh of my stomach dropping to my feet, my hair blowing back and falling out of its ponytail makes me feel more alive than anything I've ever known. No person has ever made me feel that way. No person ever will."

"Stop!"

Kakashi looked up at last, closing the book. Iruka had tears staining his face.

"Stop," he whispered again, "Please just stop." His shoulders shook as he kept back his desire to sob. Warm arms wrapped around him and Iruka froze.

Kakashi had moved like a rush of stardust settling onto him. "You make me feel," the man whispered, "like the ship's thrusters kicking in."

Kakashi had hair the color of starlight. Iruka had never noticed before.

† † †

The pirates were running low on supplies. They needed to attack another sky port, there was no question about it. And, in spite of his blooming below-deck romance with Iruka, Kakashi was still a pirate captain and a damn good one. His crew was getting antsy, they needed a target. So they made for a nondescript village.

The raid did not go well.

Below the deck, Iruka heard it all. The excited yells of the pirates, which faded into urgent yells as the ship was rocked by the firing of guns. A plasma bolt seared a hole through the room where Iruka was trapped. He only survived by a narrow duck and a very close call. He could feel the end of his ponytail singe.

His beloved ship was riddled with holes, but they retreated before the engines were hit, so they kept in the air. But only barely.

Iruka leaned against the curved wall, stroking the wood grain, as if he could soothe the ship he'd had and loved and cared for since he was twenty two.

They had finally put a safe distance between themselves and the town that fought back, and things quieted… and then got louder. Much louder. The pirates were fighting up on deck, yelling and raging and stomping their feet. Somebody yelled louder than anyone else and shut up the rest at last. And then there was an uneasy, tense silence.

Soon after, Kakashi appeared at the door. He was the holes in the wall first and looked alarmed, but Iruka was on his feet and rushing to embrace him before he could worry.

Kakashi hugged back fiercely. "They think it was my fault," he said urgently, "They think I set them up."

"Why?" Iruka asked, inhaling the smell at Kakashi's neck. Like salty sweat and oily plasma and tarred wood. Musky and low and so good.

"They're pirates," he answered with a snort, "You might have noticed, we don't take well to authority." He squeezed once more before pulling back. "I need to get you out of here." He grabbed Iruka's hand and pulled him with him up the stairs.

Iruka tripped and stumbled, and came out blinking in the forever-twilight. He took his first deep, ecstatic breath of free air. He was in the stars again, after two months, he was free again.

But Kakashi couldn't slow or stop for the joy of it. He pulled Iruka to a long boat, already prepared for an emergency escape. Even the single booster was on, warming.

"We're getting out of here," Kakashi said, letting go of Iruka and going to the back of the small craft to check the boosters to make sure they'd work. It was common for these old models to glitch and sputter. Iruka nodded and together they lifted the boat and set it hovering over the edge of the ship.

But they were not alone. The crew had caught on to their captain's plan, and were waiting.

"Well, well, so the bets weren't unfounded," a raspy voice drifted from a nearby stack of ropes. A large man with a beard and a roll of tobacco sticking out of his mouth stood there, arms crossed and glaring.

"Apparently not," agreed a young man with spiky black hair and a voice as smooth as calm skies.

Iruka looked around to realize that there were pirates everywhere. The crew he'd hired, the crew Kakashi captained.

"We thought you'd try to sneak off with your little goody-two-shoes playmate," said a blonde. He looked furious.

"Iruka, get in the boat," Kakashi said quietly, Iruka leapt over the side and landed hard in the longboat, and it wobbled dangerously as Kakashi drew his saber with a sliding metallic sound. The traitorous crew began to advance with self-assured slowness. Kakashi made no move to join Iruka.

"Kakashi!" Iruka said loud and urgent, "Kakashi, get in!" He didn't know what chance he expected to have – a longboat against a fully armed vessel full of pirates. They didn't have a prayer now that it wasn't secret. But Iruka didn't care. They had to try.

The starlight-haired man wasn't making a move to join his lover. In fact, he was bracing himself for the fight.

"Kakashi!" Iruka yelled. The man finally turned his head. And he smiled.

"Iruka, turn on the booster. Go south and don't stop until you get to that port." Iruka was shaking his head, mouthing 'no, no', but Kakashi kept going. "Don't stop for anything."

"Kakashi," Iruka said with growing desperation, "Not without you, no! Come with me!"

Kakashi smiled sadly. "And don't forget. I love you."

The pirate captain leaned backwards and yanked down his mask, pressing a kiss to the merchant captain's mouth. They had only seconds, but it felt like they had been kissing forever and as though they would never, could never stop.

But stop they did. The kiss was broken as Kakashi gave the long boat a mighty shove, activating its booster and forcing it to jolt to life.

Kakashi turned back to the advancing crew, saber drawn and ready. And Iruka sped into the starry sky.

And that was that.

The End


End file.
